Publishers, libraries, museums and archives are all in the business of communicating information. It is taken for granted that this business also include an attentiveness and design mindful that our communications will remain for the descendants of our society to access into an undefined future. In practice, though, what does that mean: how do we ensure that this access happens? Of course, getting information to users in a format they can use is part of this process. Permanence and preservation are front-and-center in all community discussions, but realistically, with limited resources and an ever-increasing amount of content, not everything can be be saved forever. Rather than permanence, persistence should be our aim, since it is an actually achievable goal.
Two weeks ago, I attended the PIDapalooza conference in Girona, Spain, which focused on anything and everything related to persistent identifiers. A talk by Geoffrey Bilder, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Crossref, spurred the question: What defines persistence? Geoff posited that persistence is not the same as permanence, but embodies more of a "blockheaded-ness" (to use his phrase), or a simple commitment to remain despite events, either planned or unplanned, which might otherwise cause deletion or replacement. In other words, persistence is the best that we can hope for in any of our communications; factors will always be stacked against us.
I recall an article I read some years ago (and another more recently on the same topic) about scientists' and administrators' efforts to communicate information about the hazards of nuclear waste sites remaining for thousands of years into the future. These papers focused on the studies of a working group, convened in the early 1980s by the U.S. Department of Energy and Bechtel Corporation, called the Human Interference Task Force. This group explored possible mechanisms to reduce the likelihood of future humans unintentionally exposing themselves to radioactive waste storage sites, for upwards of 10,000 years, as decay of some nuclear components is so lengthy. Since the half-lives of various types of nuclear waste are far longer time spans than any human language would endure, this situation presents a unique set of problems. Words, signs, and symbols--all standardized in the present will change and even have completely different meanings years hence: future languages unknowable to us now. The questions and potential solutions are fascinating.
In the nearer term, and presented with a somewhat different set of problems in our own profession, what can we do to promote persistence--if not for millennia, for centuries or just decades? The topic of persistence is not only focused on technology or backwards-compatibility or maintainance of schemas or structures used when content was created. These elements are necessary, but not sufficient by themselves; persistence goes much further. There are social components to persistence: one has to use a similar process or approach to yield the same results; one must be committed to applying and using those systems over time and be committed to maintaining them. The organizations that support infrastructure require resources and funding to be maintained and grow as the needs or demands for the material continue. Support for persistence is a commitment and an active undertaking, not simply a state of being. It is for these reasons that the process demands long-term thinking regarding both structures and governance, at the outset of communications. Once systems are put in place, that entire infrastructure--from technology through social and financial support--requires advocates and community support.
NISO strives to support persistence in all aspects of our work. Of course our standards have a measure of persistence built into the process, with cycles of review and maintenance meant to ensure that what is meaningful and helpful to our users will continue to exist. More recently, we've done our best to maintain persistence with the December launch of our revised website. However, despite our best efforts, not everything could be maintained. Some things that we meant to maintain slipped through the cracks of migration and we needed to go back to add them. We made conscious decisions to archive other things. It has taken considerable time and effort, as preservation always does, to get as far we have and there is considerable, ongoing work that we have ahead of us.
We perform this work because our community is committed to persistence. Support of persistence takes effort, but it is core to the mission of communicating information through time, which is a component of what we hope to achieve in creating and curating content.
Sincerely,
Todd Carpenter
Executive Director, NISO
NISO Reports
Media Stories
YouTube Adopts ISNI ID for Artists & Songwriters
YouTube has joined the ranks of ISNI Registration Agencies. ISNI, also known as ISO 27729:2012 International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) is a global standard identifier which that uniquely identifies public identities of parties - including individuals and institutions. YouTube will request ISNIs for each creator with works on its platform and share these identifiers with publishing partners to help ensure further adoption of these personal identifiers. YouTube technical staff believe that use of the ISNI will help properly credit the creators of content and aid discovery by end users as it resolves issues around name ambiguity. ISNI, a major component of linked data and semantic web applications, supports sharing of these identifiers across databases worldwide, making accurate links simple and straightforward.
Focus on Committees and Interest Groups: PARS Digital Conversion Interest Group
PARS (Preservation & Reformatting Section), a section of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS-a division of the American Library Association) focuses on the preservation and reformatting of library materials in all types of institutions and applying new technologies to ensure continued access to library collections. The PARS Digital Conversion Interest Group "provides a venue and forum for members to present on and discuss any and all matters related to digital conversion (i.e. digitization, preservation, and access) taking place at libraries, archives, and museums. Conversion in this case can correspond to treatments for print, audio, photographic, software, born-digital, and time-based media material." Sharing information about projects supports strategic plans at small as well as large institutions, covering a range of budgets and scopes. The section strives to stay in front of changes in the field of digital conversion.
2018 Book Manufacturing Outlook
Discussion of 2018 trends in regards to print books, including a rising demand for print books overall. Amazon same-day delivery is predicted to increase pressure for very quick turnarounds and short runs, supported by improvements in technology: "Digital printing has allowed us to economically produce smaller order quantities." The book manufacturing industry will also work to better understand e-book users and how they use the product.
Librarians' Perspectives on the Factors Influencing Data Research Management Programs
This article reports on and analyzes results from a recent survey of librarians regarding their attitudes on research data management experiences and their work supporting researchers' needs in this area. The survey identified five factors that influenced librarians' ability to support researchers' RDM needs: 1) technical resources; 2) human resources; 3) researchers' perceptions about the library; 4) leadership support; and 5) communication, coordination, and collaboration. Each of these factors is discussed in more detail with its ability to help or hinder librarian support of campus RDM programs. "Librarians have successfully established RDM programs on campus to support researchers' needs, but there are still opportunities to more efficiently and effectively support the broad range of activities throughout the data lifecycle. Based on the five influencing factors found in this study, the findings suggest that librarians can pursue these opportunities through broad-based leadership support across the different service organizations on campus and increased communication, coordination, and collaboration with these service organizations and those at other institutions." A complete literature review is also included.
New and Proposed Specs and Standards
W3C Releases Three First Draft of Digital Publishing Standards
In early January, the W3C Publishing Working Group released three First Public Working Drafts related to aspects of releasing digital documents. The Working Group welcomes comments via the GitHub repository issues interface (see the respective documents' headers for the reference to the repositories).
The Web Publications defines a collection of information that describes the structure of Web Publications such that user agents can provide user experiences well-suited to reading publications, such as sequential navigation and offline reading. This information set includes the default reading order, a list of resources, and publication-wide metadata.
The Packaged Web Publications defines a packaging format for combining the resources of a Web Publication [wpub] into a single portable file.
The Web Annotation Extensions for Web Publications extends the foundational model that has been developed in the Web Annotation Model Recommendation by adding selector types applicable to collective resources and a new model component for describing positions in text and byte streams.
The Working Group welcomes comments via the GitHub repository issues (see the respective documents' headers for the reference of the repositories).
Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries
The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) and the Society of American Archivists (SAA) announced the approval of the Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries on January 25, 2018. The specification addresses the need to gather, analyze, and share evidence about the impact of archival repositories and special collections libraries, their services and the effectiveness of their operations. Based on this standard repositories and archives will be able to conduct meaningful assessment initiatives and to articulate and evaluate best practices.
Current ISO Ballots
NISO Voting Members participate in the development, revision, and evaluation of developing NISO standards. US-based NISO Voting Members are also able to influence the standards process internationally by contributing their perspectives on international standards development through the US Technical Advisory Group for ISO TC46 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34. The following ballots are open and will close before the next issue of Newsline. If you are a NISO Voting Member, log into your NISO page and you'll see the ballots linked there.
SHORT-TERM BALLOT - TC46 SC11 N1721 ISO TC309 Liaison
TC46 SC11 agreed to establish a liaison to ISO/TC309 Governance of Organizations to have the opportunity to review the ongoing work in this committee. Should TC6 SC11 establish this liaison to ISO/TC309 Governance of Organizations?
This ballot closes on February 22, 2018.
Systematic review of ISO/TS 28560-4:2014 - RFID in libraries - Encoding of data elements
This International Standard defines rules for ISO 28560-1 data elements to be encoded in radio frequency identification (RFID) tags with a memory structure that is partitioned into four memory banks. Should ISO/TS 28560-4:2014 -- RFID in libraries -- Encoding of data elements base on the rules from ISO/IEC 15962 in RFID tag be confirmed, revised, or withdrawn?
This ballot closes on February 26, 2017.
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